Thursday, 28 February 2013

Wreck it Ralph Review

Finally we have a Brilliant video game film, the mighty House of Mouse show that they still have it. After the brilliant Tangled, we now have masterpiece. For generations Disney have been there. since 1939 when Walt released his dream and vision of feature length Animation Snow White to the world, they have gone on and on to this their 51st in their animation studio. Some could say Disney don't need to do these anymore, with their live action films like Pirates of the Caribbean, their very successful Marvel studios and Pixar doing brilliant animation since Toy Story (1995). But I for one think Disney can always surprise us, like Tangled (2010) before this, is one of their modern day classics. To my readers in America I know you had this film ages ago, but here in the UK this film is new for us so I have just caught it at the cinema.

Our hero Ralph with some of our main "players"

This film does for Video Games what Toy Story did for toys, the arcade games come to life as soon as humans leave just like the toys in Toy Story. In the game "Fix It Felix Jr", Is Ralph the bad guy of said game who doesn't want to be a bad guy no more, he just wants to get a medal like Fix It Felix, the good guy in the game. So to prove to everyone in the game that he can get a medal too, and be the good guy, he jumps from his game to search for a medal and become a hero. We first see him join a video game that looks specially like Halo, but isnt. This game has a hard as nails female Sgt called Calhoun, voiced superbly by Jane Lynch, who for me was one of the characters that made the film for me, so serious yet "programmed" with a sad past, I loved this character. After leaving this game we go to Sugar Rush world, the home of a Racing game that looks referenced from Mario Kart, here we meet Vanellope, voiced by Sarah Silverman, now I liked this character but with Sarah Silverman voicing it I can find it an annoying character sometimes, but that is because I am not a fan of Silverman for me that is the only gripe of this film.Vanellope wants to race in Sugar Rush but she is not allowed on the fact that she is a glitch in the game and King Candy the ruler of Sugar Rush World won't allow it, but he didn't count on our two heroes who only want to be noticed. There is a motive to King Candy's reluctance but it will be a spoiler to say what, lets say it is pure genius when we find out. Can Ralph with the help of Vanellope get his medal and prove that he can be the good guy? Can Venellope prove that she can be a great racer and make Sugar Rush her home? You need to watch this film.

Ralph offering the legend that is Q*Bert a Pac-Man cherry

John C.Reilly voices Ralph and wow what a job he does I was so amazed by his voice work. The characters in this film are pure Disney gold, I cared so much for them. The animation was superb with nice little touches, like old video game pixel characters moving jerkily like they do in the games, and zooming out to show us the original game, as it was yesteryear for example Ralph leaving the Pac Man game and it zooms right out to show us the original game view it was genius. Since John Lasseter joined Disney from Pixar as their creative adviser, we have seen a huge leap in Disney's own animation work, from Princess and the Frog (2009) through Tangled and now this one, they are for me getting back to the top....Where Disney should belong!.

Main Poster

As someone who played video games a lot, and I mean a lot, i loved this film, because it is just full to the rim of classic gaming icons with cameos everywhere you look, to list them all would take this whole page so I will tell you my favourite scenes of cameos. Most of the characters meet in the "Tapper" bar, from the arcade game "Tapper" its great, one scene sees Ralph just having a drink there taking to the barman before he does the same as the game, slide drinks across to his costumers. Another great scene I enjoyed is, Ryu and Ken in Street Fighter II ending a fight looking at each other and then say "hey how about a drink at Tappers" pure brilliance. Now we come to the legend that is Q*Bert I was so overjoyed at seeing him in this and he appears often, he is a video game icon for me and seeing him in here was great.

If you love video games you need to see this. I love movies and Disney are an important part of movie history I for one am glad that they are still here today and still making animated Disney films for not just children but families and everyone to enjoy, thank you Walt for having that dream of Snow White and realizing that dream. Your still with us today.